<p>The size and complexity of local area and wide area networks are continually growing and so do the requirements of high availability. Today we rely on the technology and it should always work. Network management is therefore getting more and more important. Network management includes: monitoring and isolating faults, measuring performance, configuring the resources, making sure the network is secured and more. </p><p>Since in the early 1990s the management has typically been done with SNMPv1 or CMIP and using the client/server model. SNMPv1 is insecure, CMIP is complex and the traditional centralized paradigm is no longer sufficient to handle the management requirements of large networks. </p><p>As the demands for security and flexibility increases, new ways to manage networks are needed. This research tries to find out how a network management system should function, what management protocol to use, how to enhance the flexibility and how to make the system more secure.</p>

In this thesis we look at mobile agent solutions to black hole search and related problems. Mobile agents are computational entities that are autonomous, mobile, and can interact with their environment and each other. The black hole search problem is for a team of these agents to work together to map or explore a graph-like network environment where some elements of the network are dangerous to the agents. Most research into black hole search has focussed on finding a single dangerous node: a black hole. We look at the problem of finding multiple black holes and, in the case of dangerous graph exploration, multiple black links as well. We look at the dangerous graph exploration problem in the network model. The network model is based on a normal static computer network modelled as a simple graph. We give an optimal solution to the dangerous graph exploration problem using agents that start scattered on nodes throughout the network. We then make the problem more difficult by allowing an adversary to delete links during the execution of the algorithm and provide a solution using scattered agents. In the last decade or two, types of networks have emerged, such as ad hoc wireless networks, that are by their nature dynamic. These networks change quickly over time and can make distributed computations difficult. We look at black hole search in one type of dynamic network described by the subway model, which we base on urban subway systems. The model allows us to look at the cost of opportunistic movement by requiring the agents to move using carriers that follow routes among the network's sites, some of which are black holes. We show that there are basic limitations on any solution to black hole search in the subway model and prove lower bounds on any solution's complexity. We then provide two optimal solutions that differ in the agents' starting locations and how they communicate with one another. Our results provide a small window into the cost of deterministic distributed computing in networks that have dynamic elements, but which are not fully random.

Portable languages and distributed paradigms have driven a wave of new applications and processing models. One of the most promising, certainly from its early marketing, but disappointing (from its limited uptake)is the mobile agent execution and data processing model. Mobile agents are autonomous programs which can move around a heterogeneous network such as the Internet, crossing through a number of different security domains, and perform some work at each visited destination as partial completion of a mission for their agent user. Despite their promise as a technology and paradigm to drive global electronic services (i.e.any Internet-driven-and-delivered service, not solely e-commerce related activities), their up take on the Internet has been very limited. Chief among the reasons for the paradigm's practical under-achievement is there is no ubiquitous frame work for using Internet mobile agents, and non-trivial security concerns abound for the two major stake holders (mobile agent users and mobile agent platform owners). While both stake holders have security concerns with the dangers of the mobile agent processing model, most investigators in the field are of the opinion that protecting mobile agents from malicious agent platforms is more problematic than protecting agent platforms from malicious mobile agents. Traditional cryptographic mechanisms are not well-suited to counter the bulk of the threats associated with the mobile agent paradigm due to the untrusted hosting of an agent and its intended autonomous, flexible movement and processing. In our investigation, we identified that the large majority of the research undertaken on mobile agent security to date has taken a micro-level perspective. By this we mean research focused solely on either of the two major stakeholders, and even then often only on improving measures to address one security issue dear to the stake holder - for example mobile agent privacy (for agent users) or access control to platform resources (for mobile agent platform owners). We decided to take a more encompassing, higher-level approach in tackling mobile agent security issues. In this endeavour, we developed the beginnings of an infrastructural-approach to not only reduce the security concerns of both major stakeholders, but bring them transparently to a working relationship. Strategic utilisation of both existing distributed system trusted-third parties (TTPs) and novel mobile agent paradigm-specific TTPs are fundamental in the infrastructural framework we have devised. Besides designing an application and language independent frame work for supporting a large-scale Internet mobile agent network, our Mobile Agent Secure Hub Infrastructure (MASHIn) proposal encompasses support for flexible access control to agent platform resources. A reliable means to track the location and processing times of autonomous Internet mobile agents is discussed, withfault-tolerant handling support to work around unexpected processing delays. Secure,highly-effective (incomparison to existing mechanisms) strategies for providing mobile agent privacy, execution integrity, and stake holder confidence scores were devised - all which fit comfortably within the MASHIn framework. We have deliberately considered the interests - withoutbias -of both stake holders when designing our solutions. In relation to mobile agent execution integrity, we devised a new criteria for assessing the robustness of existing execution integrity schemes. Whilst none of the existing schemes analysed met a large number of our desired properties for a robust scheme, we identified that the objectives of Hohl's reference states scheme were most admirable - particularly real - time in - mission execution integrity checking. Subsequently, we revised Hohl's reference states protocols to fit in the MASHIn framework, and were able to overcome not only the two major limitations identified in his scheme, but also meet all of our desired properties for a robust execution integrity scheme (given an acceptable decrease in processing effiency). The MASHIn offers a promising new perspective for future mobile agent security research and indeed a new frame work for enabling safe and autonomous Internet mobile agents. Just as an economy cannot thrive without diligent care given to micro and macro-level issues, we do not see the security prospects of mobile agents (and ultimately the prospects of the mobile agent paradigm) advancing without diligent research on both levels.

Since its conception and development, the FA_PorT, a framework that allows the creation of systems education via the Internet, has been shown to be a tool of great potential in the development of applications in the context of distance education via the Internet. However, it was noted that in systems instantiated by FA_PorT, would require a different treatment/custom among the students with unsatisfactory performance in a session of teaching on-line. So the idea was the possibility to set up build custom sessions to these students. Thus, it was proposed that a mobile tutor be increased to FA_PorT, enabling the run of a training session off-line on the machine of the student. The mobile tutoring system allows providing to learners, particularly with unsatisfactory performance, on assistance, since the content of the sessions of the assistance will be set considering the performance obtained by the learner during an on-line teaching session. A mobile tutoring system is migrated through the use of a mobile agent for the learner's computer, providing teaching sessions without having to maintain a connection with the on-line system. Having completed the task of the mobile tutoring system, the mobile agent will come back to the origin computer. The mobile tutoring system was implemented using the Jade for mobile agents / Desde a sua concepção e desenvolvimento, o FA_PorT, um framework que permite a criação de sistemas de ensino on-line via Internet, tem mostrado ser uma ferramenta de grande potencial no desenvolvimento de aplicações no contexto de educação a distância através da Internet. Porém, notou-se que, nos sistemas instanciados pelo FA_PorT, seria necessário um tratamento diferenciado/personalizado junto aos alunos com desempenho não satisfatório em uma sessão de ensino on-line. Assim, a idéia foi a possibilidade de criarem-se sessões personalizadas de reforço a esses alunos. Dessa forma, foi proposto que um tutor móvel fosse incrementado ao FA_PorT, possibilitando a execução de uma sessão de ensino off-line na máquina do aluno. O sistema tutor móvel possibilita fornecer uma assistência ao aluno com desempenho insatisfatório, já que o conteúdo das sessões da assistência será configurado considerando o desempenho obtido pelo aluno durante uma sessão de ensino on-line. Um sistema tutor móvel é migrado, através do uso de um agente móvel, para o computador do aluno, proporcionando sessões de ensino sem a necessidade de manter uma conexão com o sistema on-line. Uma vez concluída a tarefa do tutor móvel, o agente móvel voltará ao computador de origem. A nova funcionalidade no FA_PorT foi projetada e o sistema tutor móvel foi implementado utilizando o a tecnologia Jade para agentes móveis

Orientador: Maria Beatriz Felgar de Toledo / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Computação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-07T04:30:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Viana_GiovanniBogea_M.pdf: 694479 bytes, checksum: 8f1fc7bfaffc85403fba40175dcebd16 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006 / Resumo: Esta dissertação apresenta um modelo de transações para ambientes de computação móvel que leva em conta o dinamismo e interatividade nesse ambiente. Para lidar com o dinamismo, tanto aplicações como o gerenciador da transação e os objetos participantes de uma transação são executados como agentes e podem se mover a critério da aplicação. As responsabilidades de adaptação ao dinamismo do ambiente são divididas entre aplicações e o sistema de apoio. O sistema monitora o ambiente e envia notificações às aplicações sobre variações no ambiente. As aplicações decidem sobre as políticas para se adaptar às mudanças. Para lidar com a interatividade, as operações de uma transação podem ser submetidas passo-a-passo e o usuário pode adotar as estratégias mais adequadas conforme as necessidades da aplicação e as mudanças no ambiente / Abstract: This dissertation presents a transaction model for mobile computing environments that takes into account their dynamism and interactivity. To deal with dynamism, applications, transaction managers and participating objects are executed as agents which can move as commanded by the application. The responsabilities for adaptation are divided between the applications and the underlying system. The system monitors the environment and sends notifications to applications about variations in the environment. Applications decide about policies to adapt to changes. To deal with interactivity, operations of one transaction may be submitted step-by-step and the user is able to adopt the best strategies considering application requirements and changes in the environment / Mestrado / Mestre em Ciência da Computação

The flexibility offered by mobile agents is quite noticeable in distributed computing environments. But the flexibility comes with a set of new levels of complexity due to their autonomous nature. The mobile agent paradigm introduce additional threats since agents systems are prone to failures originating from bad communication, security attacks, agent server crashes, system resources unavailability, network congestion or even deadlock situations. In such events, mobile agents either get lost or damaged (partially or totally) during execution. In order to gain solid foundation at the heart of today’s e-society, the mobile agent technology paradigm must address the issue of reliability. Making mobile agents fault tolerant is a measure taken to increase the dependability and reliability of agent-based application. Mobile agent’s fault tolerance is gaining momentum and many approaches have been proposed. Despite these efforts, the field still suffers from set backs in the form of persistent challenges. This study analyzes the existing fault tolerance approaches against a proposed generic fault tolerance framework that consists of a monitoring, planning and recovery process execution phases. Following the analysis, this study brings about the state-of-the-art in mobile agent’s fault tolerance approaches and the lingering challenges that affect mobile agent’s fault tolerance implementations from being efficiently and fully realized. The study will serve as a guide to future researches and possible solution for a more reliable and transparent fault tolerance in mobile agents.

The size and complexity of local area and wide area networks are continually growing and so do the requirements of high availability. Today we rely on the technology and it should always work. Network management is therefore getting more and more important. Network management includes: monitoring and isolating faults, measuring performance, configuring the resources, making sure the network is secured and more. Since in the early 1990s the management has typically been done with SNMPv1 or CMIP and using the client/server model. SNMPv1 is insecure, CMIP is complex and the traditional centralized paradigm is no longer sufficient to handle the management requirements of large networks. As the demands for security and flexibility increases, new ways to manage networks are needed. This research tries to find out how a network management system should function, what management protocol to use, how to enhance the flexibility and how to make the system more secure.

In this thesis we look at mobile agent solutions to black hole search and related problems. Mobile agents are computational entities that are autonomous, mobile, and can interact with their environment and each other. The black hole search problem is for a team of these agents to work together to map or explore a graph-like network environment where some elements of the network are dangerous to the agents. Most research into black hole search has focussed on finding a single dangerous node: a black hole. We look at the problem of finding multiple black holes and, in the case of dangerous graph exploration, multiple black links as well. We look at the dangerous graph exploration problem in the network model. The network model is based on a normal static computer network modelled as a simple graph. We give an optimal solution to the dangerous graph exploration problem using agents that start scattered on nodes throughout the network. We then make the problem more difficult by allowing an adversary to delete links during the execution of the algorithm and provide a solution using scattered agents. In the last decade or two, types of networks have emerged, such as ad hoc wireless networks, that are by their nature dynamic. These networks change quickly over time and can make distributed computations difficult. We look at black hole search in one type of dynamic network described by the subway model, which we base on urban subway systems. The model allows us to look at the cost of opportunistic movement by requiring the agents to move using carriers that follow routes among the network's sites, some of which are black holes. We show that there are basic limitations on any solution to black hole search in the subway model and prove lower bounds on any solution's complexity. We then provide two optimal solutions that differ in the agents' starting locations and how they communicate with one another. Our results provide a small window into the cost of deterministic distributed computing in networks that have dynamic elements, but which are not fully random.

Em aplicações distribuídas baseadas em agentes móveis, a coordenação das ações dos agentes móveis é uma tarefa complexa. A maior dificuldade é devido ao fato que agentes móveis podem mudar de endereço dinamicamente. Nesta dissertação, apresentamos o projeto e a implementação de um mecanismo de coordenação de agentes móveis que contorna este problema. Este mecanismo, que chamamos de Canal de Broadcast, está baseado na difusão de mensagens e possibilita que os membros de um grupo de agentes móveis interajam entre si, independentemente de suas localizações correntes. Modelos de coordenação existentes oferecem formas de interação entre agentes móveis, mas todos eles impõem alguma exigência. Ou os agentes móveis devem conhecer a localização de outros agentes, ou devem estar localizados no mesmo lugar ou devem migrar para um lugar específico. A principal vantagem deste mecanismo de coordenação está na total transparência de localização: as mensagens podem ser endereçadas a um conjunto de agentes móveis independentemente de sua localização corrente. Este mecanismo foi implementado no ASDK (Aglets Software Development Kit) da IBM e a sua utilidade foi demonstrada usando dois problemas típicos de coordenação em Sistemas Distribuídos: a Exclusão Mútua e o protocolo Manager-Workers. Testamos o desempenho do mecanismo e identificamos que o custo do Canal de Broadcast não é tão alto comparado aos benefícios que proporciona. Através deste mecanismo, os agentes móveis poderão executar as suas tarefas e interagir entre sí com o propósito da coordenação sem as exigências impostas por outros modelos de coordenação. / In distributed applications based on mobile agents, the coordination of mobile agents actions is a difficult task. The main difficulty comes from the fact that mobile agents can change their address dynamically. In this dissertation, we present the project and implementation of a mechanism for coordinating mobile agents that overcomes this problem. This mechanism, which we called Broadcast Channel, is based on the difusion of messages and enables the members of a mobile agent group to interact with each other independently of their current locations. Existing coodination models offer some means of interaction between mobile agents, but all of them impose some requirements. Either the mobile agents must know about each other's location, or must be located at the same place or must move to a specific place. The main advantage of our coordination mechanism is the full location transparency: the messages can be sent to a set of mobile agents independently of their current locations. This mechanism was implemented using IBM's ASDK (Aglets Software Development Kit) and its use was demonstrated using two typical coordination problems in Distributed Systems: the Mutual Exclusion and the Manager-Workers protocol. We tested the performance of the mechanism and identified that the cost of the Broadcast Channel is not too high, compared to the benefit it provides. Through this mechanism, the mobile agents can do their tasks and interact with each other for the purpose of coordination without the requirements imposed by other models.

In this research, the application of intelligent mobile agents to the management of distributed network environments is investigated. Intelligent mobile agents are programs which can move about network systems in a deterministic manner in carrying their execution state. These agents can be considered an application of distributed artificial intelligence where the (usually small) agent code is moved to the data and executed locally. The mobile agent paradigm offers potential advantages over many conventional mechanisms which move (often large) data to the code, thereby wasting available network bandwidth. The performance of agents in network routing and knowledge acquisition has been investigated and simulated. A working mobile agent system has also been designed and implemented in JDK 1.2.